Was a time George R. R. Martin could've pulled off something as splashy. Doubt he could do it now.
I wonder if this will be the inflection point in Sanderson's career, I can already hear the "everything sucks" critics sharpening their knives over the amount of money raised. He could drop something with the impact and longevity of "Lord of the Rings" and there's still gonna be people bitching about that much money for 4 books.
Another nail in the coffin of the traditional "publishing industry" too. Expecting to see "edited and produced by" credits in books soon, and to pay attention to the names of those as much as the authors.
This isn't really a nail in the publishing industry's coffin. The number of authors who can do this and even do okay let alone insane amounts of money is miniscule. If you don't already have a huge name, making people even aware a book exists is HARD. Some writers have managed indie only by being found by someone with a big enough audience to catapult them into making very very real money, but it isn't the norm.
The only thing this really means is Brandon could skip dealing with Tor/whoever else he publishes with after his current contracts are up, if he's willing to forgo being in bookstores. I would suspect he keeps Stormlight with Tor simply so you can find every book the same way, but any future books are much more up in the air.
> If you don't already have a huge name, making people even aware a book exists is HARD.
The reason why Cory Doctorow gives/gave away his books for free (earlier in his career?) is because obscurity is a bigger problem than piracy for most authors.
If people are pirating your books that's a "good" problem to have because people are actually aware of you and your work.
The way this would hurt the publishing industry is by taking away their cash cows. As I understand it, publishers are effectively funded by a handful of successful books, and bankable authors. This money lets them release books by many other authors, who are less successful. If the "big name" writers left traditional publishing, the whole model implodes: new writers, or niche writers, wouldn't have as many opportunities.
On the other hand, there are plenty of opportunities for those writers to be successful outside the traditional publishing industry. So, if every big name writer switched to crowdfunding (which is not by any means guaranteed) I don't think literature would necessarily suffer. The publishing industry would suffer, but I don't feel the need to protect their business model.
A lot of the authors who matter most here (and there are ones way bigger then Brandon like King and Grisham) likely don't care about putting in all the work for a few more millions of dollars when they already make 7-8 figures per book. A LOT goes into arranging print runs, managing all the extra goodies he's adding as bonuses at the higher tiers, and so on.
Writers who need extra stuff to make a name and convince people to notice them is one thing. When you already make insane amounts of money it becomes less worth it.
Also I wonder if less nerdy/technical fan bases than SFF would be as inclined to even get involved with Kickstarter.
Publishers definitely still have a role in the world to play. I've looked at self-published stuff that has embarrassing and, frankly, appalling typos in them (like, did you even look at the red underlines in Microsoft Word before publishing this?). The good ones go beyond just editing, though: they are "curators" and establish a brand or reputation for quality. "Penguin Classics", for example, is usually a few bucks more than other brands that might publish the same novel, but particularly for translated works, you're paying for Penguin's commitment to a quality translation.
On the other end, there's the Publisher role as providing the niche catered experience, like these guys I discovered recently:
I'm enjoying some of their anthologies so far, particular the dedication to tracking down the unedited versions of obscure works by famous fantasy authors.
Sure, but if they have a track record of publishing material you like, it stands to reason that you might have a better-than-normal chance of the pulling a random book off the shelf by this publisher and liking it, no?
I consider it comparable to record labels. I follow some small/mid-sized record labels on Bandcamp that have signed several bands I like. Their releases tend to stick to a particular sound or genre that I enjoy. If the label drops a new album by an unknown artist, I am more likely to give the artist a try, because the label has a good track record in my mind. It certainly helps if the album is free to listen to before buying, but you get the idea.
>>I've looked at self-published stuff that has embarrassing and, frankly, appalling typos in them
2010 called, they want their attitude back.
This whole "Self published stuff is low quality, only legacy publishers edit their books" is such a terrible meme, it needs to die. It might have been true in 2007-10 when indie publishing really took off, I can't believe people are still repeating this.
I take it you've never looked at the self-published stuff on Kindle Unlimited or put up for Free/$1 on Amazon Kindle. I've seen programming books published in the past year that are supposed to be "C Programming Exercises", but in reality are little more than poorly-copied solutions from Stack Overflow.
It's still a problem. I'm not knocking every indie author who wanted to self-publish their first Sci-Fi novel. Far from it. Traditional publishers can churn out low-quality garbage with the rest of them, particularly when trying to make a quick buck by reprinting Public Domain works. My point is that it's always a race to the bottom for some people, and digital publishing has made it much easier, since it has largely eliminated the cost associated with production.
> Another nail in the coffin of the traditional "publishing industry" too. Expecting to see "edited and produced by" credits in books soon, and to pay attention to the names of those as much as the authors.
I doubt RR would ever have gotten this response -- he's never been consistent. John Grisham, Stephen King or the late Tom Clancy may have. They are/were consistent over decades. That said, Grisham's last book deal was huge (over 100 million I believe), and Sanderson absolutely has the clout to negotiate a great deal with Tor if he wanted to go that way.
He did mention that he expects the books to eventually come out as trade books under an imprint (at least the hardback), so the kickstarter is more to allow superfans to buy extras.
Honestly, I'm not sure about G. R. R. Martin. On one hand, he's taken 11 years and counting to write one book (Ok, he's also been busying himself with countless side projects, but that's not what the fans really want), so my confidence for him meeting a Kickstarter deadline is pretty low. On the other hand, the above-mentioned fans would probably do anything which is likely to speed up the release of the two last books, so a Kickstarter might still be successful...
A little confused. I assume he is already quite wealthy as a very successful Fantasy author with a long list of books written. What is the point of this? I doubt he needs the money and could already self publish and is well known enough that his fans will buy what he puts out. What does this achieve other than a cashgrab?
My understanding is that Brandon thinks fans benefit from more flexibility than the standard "publish book through big company" strategy -- he's helped start an audio company, has his own company for merch (Dragonsteel books, etc). I think the Kickstarter is more about giving people unconventional purchase options (pack of 4 books! Monthly swag deliveries!) that aren't possible through the usual "buy a book from amazon" pathway.
More cynically, this means that he can get money directly from consumers without having physical bookstores / retailers taking their cut -- but honestly, I do believe this is more designed for a better fan experience.
Interesting. I mean raising $18M from this is kind of astonishing, I would expect he probably has barely earned that much over his entire career otherwise.
>Another nail in the coffin of the traditional "publishing industry" too. Expecting to see "edited and produced by" credits in books soon, and to pay attention to the names of those as much as the authors.
Unless I'm very mistaken that is the publishing industry.
The four books are mystery books, in the sense that people paid without even knowing what were they paying for. Keeping the books secret even when they're already written looks like a marketing stunt.
I feel like I'm missing something here. Isn't the idea of kickstarter to help fund new projects that wouldn't get support from traditional funding channels? But in this case the stories are already written and Brandon already has a publisher willing to print and distribute those stories? Why would you use kickstarter in place of a preorder system?
People will use tools for whatever they can. The idea of Etsy was that it was for just genuinely hand-made stuff but the rules have changed over time so it is full of mass-manufactured stuff too.
> Why would you use kickstarter in place of a preorder system?
Why not, if you can and it works?
This way the money comes in up-front instead of after production
And you have a very good guide for sizing the first production runs (instead of taking a chance on producing too many and having to sell at a discount or store at a cost).
Also, there is the chance that the crowdfunding status will generate free advertising, as is happening here.
And with this high an interest, with proof rather than it being a guess/belief, he can probably negotiate better rates with that publisher for these runs.
You've misunderstood kickstarter. It definitely doesn't have to be projects "that wouldn't get support from traditional funding channels".
And they can be quite strict about only allowing projects that are nearly complete. It's extremely common for a boardgame, or other project to be "complete" but need a tonne of investment for production, shipping, etc.
Seems like the perfect model for a book launch. And the fans get what they want too with all the bonuses.
I've been tangentially involved in 2 books (1 from start to finish) and there are a number of people that will contribute to editing and making sure the content is solid/flows well.
I was surprised by how much post production happens after the initial draft is written.
As I recall, our biggest cash outlays were marketing and editing.
Brandon is entirely self published (Dragonsteel Entertainment). They cannot print experimental books without selling enough copies first. Also it is kickstarting all the swag packages they send monthly throughout a full year.
This is such a funny takeaway, basically it's "As long as you're extremely popular already, it basically doesn't matter what you do on your kickstarter, your fans will buy it anyway" - which is both true, and totally useless advice.
Personally, Im a bit pissed at Sanderson. He has series he hasnt finished-- including teh Alcatraz which has been abandoned for around 5 years. If he has free time, why doesnt he finish those instead of writing new books??
The problem with a creative endeavor is that the quality is often (though not always) tied to the creator's interest/passion towards the project. If he hasn't finished Alcatraz yet, maybe he doesn't want to, or maybe he's hit some kind of writer's block for it.
I guess the question would be: if he writes a book solely out of obligation and his heart is no longer in it, do you really want the end product?
He liked how in the beginning when he started to write he could create new things and work on what he was most excited about, but as he wrote books he started getting shoehorned into writing the sequels to the books, limiting him in what he could do and what he wanted to write.
When some unexpected, free writing time opened up - he used it to go back to that and enjoy himself writing books that didn't have any preexisting limitations.
Personally, I'm a bit pissed at shantnutiwari. They have a job to do. If they have free time, why don't they get back to work instead of posting comments on Hacker News?
We all have our own ways of balancing work and life, and relieving stress, and trying to master new things. Creativity comes in bursts. We just happen to be spoiled that Sanderson is basically a fire hose that we get to sip from.
> If he has free time, why doesnt he finish those instead of writing new books??
Something he has spoken of in the past is he if dropped his side projects, like people sometimes ask, his output is likely to go down because these projects help recharge him so he stays motivated for the mainline projects.
I've never heard of this author. Anyone have any good recommendations on where to start? Specific book titles would be appreciated (its hard to find the starting point in a given series sometimes for example)
Mistborn is a great trilogy, if you read book 1 and decide it's not for you then it's a fine stopping point. Book 3 is another great stopping point, either way you're not getting into a massive commitment like the Wheel of Time series or something. It's easy to read fantasy, characters don't break the fantasy rules laid out in the universe, the story is cohesive and comes to a satisfying conclusion. I was only mildly interested when I picked up the first book but I burned through the trilogy at light speed during quarantine. Highly recommended fun and easy reads.
"The Cosmere" is his overarching fantasy universe, with The Stormlight Archive as its big fantasy epic (beginning with The Way of Kings). That series has references to his other fantasy work, including his other big series (Mistborn), but you don't necessarily need to have read anything else first. I think there are 4 books now with 10 planned, I haven't read the latest one yet but I enjoyed the first three.
It's been a couple of years but I remember really liking The Emperor's Soul, and it's a $5 ebook novella so you're not investing too much time or money to check it out. DRM free from Kobo, not sure if that's the case via Amazon/Kindle.
Oh man, have fun. I wish I could wipe my mind and read Stormlight fresh. Be sure to read Warbreaker before book 2 if you haven’t already, and don’t sleep on the novellas.
Read the first Mistborn, that's a good introduction to his series. The Cosmere is kind of relevant but if you don't know anything about it it doesn't take away from it.
Well, if you're familiar with Sanderson's novels, I just mean those. He's writing several series at once, and produces novels for them at a blinding pace.
I wonder if this will be the inflection point in Sanderson's career, I can already hear the "everything sucks" critics sharpening their knives over the amount of money raised. He could drop something with the impact and longevity of "Lord of the Rings" and there's still gonna be people bitching about that much money for 4 books.
Another nail in the coffin of the traditional "publishing industry" too. Expecting to see "edited and produced by" credits in books soon, and to pay attention to the names of those as much as the authors.